Posted
by
timothyon Wednesday January 27, 2010 @05:28PM
from the horsefeathers-still-a-mystery dept.

anzha writes "Do you remember being a kid and told we'd never know what colors the dinosaurs were? For at least some, that's no longer true. Scientists working in the UK and China have closely examined the fossils of multiple theropods and actually found the colors and patterns that were present in the fossilized proto-feathers. So far, the answer is orange, black and white in banded and other patterns. The work also thoroughly thrashes the idea that fossils might not be feathers, but collagen fibers instead. If this holds up, Birds Are Dinosaurs. Period. And colorful!"

No kdawson articles will tell you that something terrible (which didn't actually happen, as the first post will point out, with citations) is entirely the fault of the conservatives (who opposed it when it looked as if it was going to happen, because they're not actually stupid). At least, that's vaguely what I remember before I blocked him from the front page. The quality of Slashdot stories went up quite a bit after doing that. I wonder if we can get Taco to publish what percentage of/. readers block

But while Vinther is convinced by the melanosomes that Zhang has found, he's more skeptical about the inferences about colour. "Saying that Sinosauropteryx was rufous-red, based on one sample is a stretch," he says. We don't even know how melanosome distributions in modern birds lead to specific colours. "Without this knowledge quantified, we cannot predict specific colors in fossils, maybe except black. So we are still far from putting colors on dinosaurs."

Melanosomes are packed with melanins, pigments that range from drab blacks and greys to reddish-brown and yellow hues. Their presence in dinosaur filaments has allowed Fucheng Zhang to start piecing together the colours of these animals, millions of years after their extinction. For example, Zhang thinks that the small predator Sinosauropteryx had "chestnut to reddish-brown" stripes running down its tail and probably a similarly coloured crest down its back. Meanwhile, the early bird Confuciusornis had a variety of black, grey, red and brown hues, even within a single feather.

Vinther also has a good point about feathers being capable of diffraction. For example, green parrots have no green pigment; the green is the result of the natural diffraction grating formed by the feathers. If you give a parrot a bath or shower, its green feathers turn a dark grayish brown. By only looking at the pigments, you'd think that a green parrot would actually be a dark grayish brown.

Still, it's very interesting work. Additionally, while it seems unlikely that we will ever be possible to 100% recreate a dinosaur, there are a lot of individual lines of data -- morphological characteristics, the DNA of their descendants, the remains of broken-down proteins in the fossils, microscopy of fossilized cells, etc -- that should allow us to come pretty close, as biological science continues to mature.

Well yes, those are the people for whom the question of whether birds evolved from dinosaurs is ridiculous on its face because nothing "evolves" and dinosaur fossils were just put there by God to test our faith*.

The question is, is there anyone who actually believes in evolution who doubts the evidence that birds evolved from dinosaurs?

I don't really think there's anyone in that camp anymore though I could be wrong.

I never really got the whole thing. Once it gets down to that detail level isn't it purely a matter of naming conventions? The taxonomy is a system we impose on it. The important matters of debate were that dinosaurs were: warm blooded, sometimes feathered, and that birds evolved from them. I was pretty convinced of all of those things by current evidence. Behavioral inferences could be made as well. For example when I was little books still described dinosaurs lazing in the sun every morning to warm

If you think all life ended when the dinosaurs went extinct, you'd be a fool. Otherwise, how would we have come around?

Our (alleged) evolutionary ancestors are considered just as extinct as the dinosaurs. Homo habilis for example. Don't think this is an ape, this was a smart species that built stone and bone tools. While Gorillas have shown to use bones and stones as tools, they have not yet constructed their own, like this species

I have nothing against those who hold religious views, as I sort of fall into that category, but it upsets me when they discredit science in the name of religion.

What I mean is, there are some very factual principles upon which our technology is derived. These same principles are fundamental throughout the observed universe, and we have used those principles to determine a fossil was created 65 million years ago. If you choose not to beli

Everyone on Slashdot (Being News for Nerds) is of a scientific or technical inclination. To claim to be scientific and then refute reproducable scientific evidence is ridiculous, and should be treated as such.

I agree, somewhat, and would like to opine that while the position is ridiculous the person stating it may or may not be such. I would like to see more slashdotters assume the latter.

There is an unsavory element around here that enjoys being with the 'in' crowd and likes to give religious people verbal wedgies. Probably repressed bully issues from their real lives, but inexcusable none-the-less.

Everyone has to draw a line somewhere - i.e. as an exaggeration, you would not be polite to people who think murdering, raping etc others is acceptable (but don't do it themselves). As a community you define the values that you accept, the values you refuse and those that are in-between. If as geeks we say that we do not accept values that include ignorance of science at that level then there is nothing fascist about it. At the end of the day as geeks we are probably one of the few pro-science groups and sh

I was going to post a rebuttal to your point, but then I realised that you don't actually exist and that your post was left by the creator on the/. server to test my faith. The timestamp was the clue - apparently you posted 37 minutes before the universe was created.

Around 65 million years ago, dinosaurs went extinct. The assumption, based upon fossil evidence, is that many types of dinosaurs, specifically the saurischian superorder, evolved into birds. While the ornithiscian superorder is called 'bird-hipped,' referring to the hip structure, it is actually the saurischian superorder which evolved. As the saurischian superorder evolved into birds, the evolution of the hips of the various species resembled the ornithiscian hips more and more.

It is always better in discussions such at this to express things as "evolved from" or "descended from" rather than "evolved into". That's both because it is more correct and because people who don't understand evolution take "evolved into" and turn it into "turned into". Then they get confused because something can only turn into one other thing. Also "evolved into" invokes direction or worse, volition. "descended from" does not.

For example, "birds descended from therapod dinosaurs" is in all probab

What an interesting universe you think you live in. Full of strawmen and brightly colored collagen filled bones.

In 20 or 50 years you'll still be as wrong as you are today, because your understanding of evolution is somewhere below the third grade level.

And nobody with any understanding of evolution thought people evolved from a chimps. Chimps have gone through as much change in the last few million years as we have. We have a common ancestor with chimps. If it were still around and we put it in front

You see, my friends? I do not entertain your wild theory, though it has just the mildest scientific backing, and therefore I must be wrong. Am I wrong? You have no (as in zero) absolute grounds on which to say so. What is more likely -- that T-rexes went extinct or that their offspring are our common birds? I say they went extinct. You say they became birds. Perhaps I am wrong, but for you to say that I am wrong, without proof or review - yet claiming a scientific highground, is worse than wrong. In

No one in the preceding posts said T-Rexes did not go extinct or that they evolved into birds,
They said that birds evolved from dinosaurs - but there were more than one type of dinosaur species and undoubtedly they did not all survive to evolve into birds.

you don't seem to argue against it becoming a tiny proportion of it's former size, but you think it impossible that it's pectoral muscles could have enlarged in more than 100 million years? What the crap?

I know how to pick my battles. T-rexes did not go from wimpy arms to the most powerful arms of the animal kingdom, (while shrinking and growing feathers), just because one T-rex, from their future, jumped into a time machine and told them they were going to get wiped out in 100 million years if they didn't start working out their useless foreclaws. If anything, the theory of evolution would say they would have lost their arms during this period of great change. If you are a reasonable man, you can see th

Well, first of all, many paleontologists, most notably Jack Horner, believe that T-rex was actually a scavenger. As a scavenger, it was most definitely not at the top of the food chain.

Also, as far as I know, it was not decided whether chickens evolved from the T-rex or ostriches evolved from the T-rex. Ostriches do not have strong wings. They have powerful legs, though. Chickens can only fly short distances. Both have a heavier skeleton and weaker muscles.

I can feel myself going on an evolution rant, so I will stop now. Just remember that hunches and wild theories mean nothing without valid, peer reviewed evidence. I will gladly take science over guessing games.

Sadly, the supporting arguments for evolution are rationalization, conjecture, manipulation, and "You don't know evolution, and that's why you disagree with it" bullocks. If you want to discuss evolution with me, you must accept that I understand it just as well as you do. I've read all the manipulative literature that you have. I've seen the documentaries, articles, and heard the dialogues. If you can convince yourself that dinosaurs evolved from their glorious forms into birds from the time of their

If you want to discuss evolution with me, you must accept that I understand it just as well as you do.

Every thing you say demonstrates that this is simply not true. Every misconception, every "simply because this doesn't mean that" strawman, every misstatement of what has and has not actually been observed, belies what you actually understand about evolution.

Yet by declaring it to be the case that you know everything about evolution already, you indicate that you do not wish to actually learn about the rea

When I describe the current theory of evolution, I describe it for the fraud it is.

No, when you describe it, you describe what you imagine the theory is, and then explain why your imagination is obviously wrong.

Your posts in this thread are completely chock-full of misconceptions, errors, and flat out fabrications of what evolutionary theory is. You make claims about what evolutionary theory states, but those claims are completely wrong. They are strawmen. You then proceed to burn them, and think that pr

I thought that "dinosaurs" were gigantic reptiles that went extinct many, many years ago.

Yeah, that's your problem right there. Three incorrect assumptions in one nice little sentence. While some dinosaurs were gigantic, most were small, and as far as being reptiles, well... some were, some weren't. As far as going extinct, some did, some didn't.

I think it's pretty impressive that colors like black, orange, and even white have traditionally been used to color dinosaurs in books and museums, and now they're finding that they may in fact be the actual colors. We do see greens a lot, but black and dark orange are very popular dinosaur colors.

This is proof that science isn't like religion, though - long established theories are constantly challenged and re-worked based on new evidence.Unlike religious views:)

The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls (amongst other recent manuscript discoveries like the additional finds of the Codex Sinaiticus in 1975) has challenged Christianity but the evidence found has so far as I know not required any re-working (ie alteration of our understanding of the Historical events).

Granted much of religion is not testable but one cannot discount that which is challenged under new discoveries. For example if Sinaiticus differed in important theological points from Codex Vaticanus this wo

Plus the color blue in birds isn't the result of pigment at all, but light refraction. Though that is due to the microscopic structure of the feathers, so maybe we could find fossil evidence for it, I don't know.

The evidence and reasoning for birds being the modern descendants of the raptor-like dinosaurs is already pretty damn compelling. If that line of reasoning could have led us astray, then it's just as likely that this is just a case of parallel evolution where feathers and feather pigmentation were evolved separately by both dinosaurs and whatever the hell birds' actual ancestor's were.

I guess what I'm saying is that this is more about answering the question of how bird-like were the dinosaurs already or how early did bird-like features evolve, rather than piling more evidence on the dinosaur-bird connection.

Though I'll admit I'm biased, since that connection means my bird watching is a little less nerdy since it's actually dinosaur watching!

No, they're not. Birds are not dinosaurs any more than squid, octopus and nautilus are ammonites. Closely related they may be, but birds are birds.

I can see where they'd think modern birds are descendants of velociraptors, or even the T-Rex to some extent. But what about dinosaurs like Brontosaurus or Triceratops? Do we really think those guys were bird ancestors? They look more like elephants than ostriches. We lump a lot of animals together under the generic "dinosaur" tag. But how much does a stegosaurus have in common with an allosaurus... and by extent, a chicken or an eagle?

I can see where they'd think modern birds are descendants of velociraptors, or even the T-Rex to some extent. But what about dinosaurs like Brontosaurus or Triceratops? Do we really think those guys were bird ancestors?

No, birds are only descendants of the raptor family of dinosaurs. "Family" not used in the specific scientific sense; I'm terrible at taxonomy to begin with, and I have no idea how narrowly they've narrowed down the possible bird-progenitor species.

Birds are grouped in the same clade as dinosaurs—the same even-narrower clade as theropod dinosaurs, in fact. (Or in Wikipedia's words: “Based on fossil and biological evidence, most scientists accept that birds are a specialised sub-group of theropod dinosaurs. More specifically, they are members of Maniraptora, a group of theropods which includes dromaeosaurs and oviraptorids, among others.”)
Squid, octopodes, and nautiluses do not fall into the clade of ammonites (the nearest clade in

In common use, they might usually be referred to that way, but technically birds are dinosaurs. Whether or not other dinosaurs had feathers.

Closely related they may be, but birds are birds.

Technically, birds are birds, but birds are a subset of dinosaurs, which are a subset of reptiles, which are a subset of animals, which are a subset of living things, and saying "birds are not dinosaurs, birds are birds" is exactly like saying "reptiles aren't animals, reptiles are

However, we have managed to clone things that old in the past! The record is a bacterium from 250 mya. Pretty impressive.

In other news, the mysterious illness causing all staff of a local genetic research lab to be quarantined continues to spread. Authorities say there is no cause for alarm, but requested that all citizens stock up on shotgun ammo and 10,000 volt electric fences "to celebrate the end of the recession". When asked for a comment, an InGen executive raised his crest feathers, bared his dorsal spine, and told this reporter, "Raaaaaarrrrgggh!"

It really depends on the nature of the fossils in question. If actual keratin is retained, rather than just the shape of the presumed keratin, then there is good reason to say the fossils are feathers.